


Towards the Sun

by thesometimeswarrior



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, Episode: s01e16 The Deserter, Episode: s03e13 The Firebending Masters, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Mentor/Protégé, Self-Acceptance, Self-Hatred, Teacher-Student Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-24
Updated: 2017-03-24
Packaged: 2018-10-10 04:00:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10428642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesometimeswarrior/pseuds/thesometimeswarrior
Summary: "Water brings healing and life. But fire brings only destruction and pain. It forces those of us burdened with its care to walk a razor's edge between humanity and savagery. Eventually, we are torn apart."Two times someone tries to convince Jeong Jeong that he is wrong about Fire, and one time that it works.





	

He stands in the corner of the camp, practicing his forms. Inhale. Let the rage burn through his blood, around his body. Exhale. Let it scorch its way out through his hands. There is pain—more so when he closes his eyes and sees all over again what he has watched it do, _all those people, those children,_ and what he knows it has done elsewhere. But the comet will arrive in four days, and if he is to burdened with this curse, if it is to be strengthened by the comet, then he must at least use it for good. And he _will_ be in control of it, to prevent its savagery from destroying what little is left...

A voice interrupts from behind. “Might I join you?”

“Sir!” Turning, Jeong Jeong quickly quells the flame (a relief, a relief) and bows.

“No, none of that, old friend. Tea?”

Iroh sits at the other man’s reluctant nod, and slowly Jeong Jeong follows.

“I think you will enjoy this,” the Grand Lotus remarks, pouring liquid into a porcelain cup. “How long has it been since you have had good tea from home?”

“I am not sure if there is anything good from the Fire Nation.”

Iroh nods, sips his tea. “Our Nation has been corrupted over the past hundred years.”

“Something which is inherently corrupt cannot be corrupted.” 

“Do you truly believe the Fire Nation is inherently corrupt?”

“The element on which it is built—with which we have been cursed—is inherently savage and destructive. How can the Fire Nation be anything but savage and destructive?”

“You are wrong.” 

Jeong Jeong splutters on his tea, surprised; such definitive and strong statements are so unlike Iroh that he cannot recall the last time he heard him speak this way. Perhaps he never has before. And for _him_ of all people to think _this_ , that he is wrong on _this_ point… “How can you say that, Iroh? You have seen the savagery...what Fire has done to this world! You deserted, like me…Your _son_ …”

“Yes.” Iroh closes his eyes at the allusion to his personal tragedy. “We used Fire in savage ways. We brought death and destruction with it, on millions of people, for a hundred years. We were wrong. We acted savagely. And millions paid the price for it. Including Lu Ten. And after, when I abandoned Ba Sing Se, I agreed with you. I, too, thought that nothing good could come from our element. But I learned...I was _wrong_ , old friend. _We_ had been savage for generations, but our element was not.”

“What could you possibly have learned that would have directed you to that conclusion?”

Iroh pointedly ignores the question, choosing instead to ask a question of his own. “What fuels your Firebending?”

“Rage, of course.”

“At whom?”

 _It should be obvious_ , thinks Jeong Jeong. “Ozai. Azulon. Sozin. Zhao. The military. Our Nation. Everything that I was.”

“And why are you here?”

“ _What?!_ ”

“Why are you here, Jeong Jeong? With the Order? With me? In this camp outside of Ba Sing Se on the eve of Sozin’s Comet?”

“To defeat the Fire Nation! To liberate Ba Sing Se! And, if the Avatar is as competent as the reports say he has become—”

“He is.”

“Then to support him as he defeats Ozai! Why else would I be here?”

“And after?”

“After?”

“When Ba Sing Se is freed, and Ozai is defeated, and the War is over, what then?”

“Then we shall have peace.”

“And what of the Fire Nation? What should we do?”

Jeong Jeong breathes. _Be destroyed,_ he thinks. _Be extinguished._ But he says: “I do not know.”

Suddenly there is a small, pulsing flame in Iroh’s hand. “What do you see in this fire?”

“Unadulterated rage. Potential for calamity.”

“Think on it, old friend. Fire is not just destructive. It has the capacity to create as well. You will understand, one day.” The old man rises. “Now, if you will excuse me: there are reports of my nephew that I must see to…”

The other man is left alone, stricken. He scrunches his nose as he summons his own flame to his hands, feels it try to pulse out of control, and fights, fights to hold it steady. 

Fire is inside them, people of their Nation, and fire always _always_ wants to pulse out of control. It is in its nature, and therefore in _their_ nature. In his. What more Iroh wants him to understand, he does not know.

* * *

“Master.”

Jeong Jeong sees him, the not-quite-a-boy-anymore, from his bedroll, in the impromptu infirmary built for the injured Order members. He is good at patience, and he has demonstrated his skill as the Healers—volunteers Pakku and the young Master Katara brought from the North Pole—have done their work to ease the severe burn on his chest. But more time is required. And he is made distinctly aware of this truth as he attempts to sit up to greet the Avatar.

“No, you don’t have to sit up!” The Avatar swiftly airbends across the room, lands next to him, and places a gentle hand on his shoulder in a single motion. “How are you feeling?”

“I have been better,” replies Jeong Jeong, as he complies and lays back down. “But I am alive, and the war is over. These are both outcomes for which I had not allowed myself to even hope. So I am content.”

“I’m glad to hear it.” The Avatar sits down beside him in a lotus position. “And don’t worry. You’re in good hands with Master Yugoda—She’s the best Healer in the world!”

“So I have been told.”

The Avatar smiles. “I wanted to come see you—well, first to thank you for helping to liberate Ba Sing Se—but also to apologize. Because I never had a chance to, before. When you tried to train me—”

“I never attempted to train you.”

“But...you _did_ , Master. In the Earth Kingdom, just after the Winter Solsti—”

“A young boy came to me, and asked me to train him, and he was not ready to be trained. I did attempt to train _that_ person. But _you_ are not that child.”

“You tried to tell me that I wasn’t ready. I should have listened to you.”

“Perhaps. But you learned, in the end. And, as I have heard it, you are a fine Firebender now,” Jeong Jeong says. 

_You can contain it_ , he doesn’t say.

“Thank you, Master.” The Avatar bows from where he sits. “But there’s something else I have to tell you too.”

Jeong Jeong waits, expectantly.

“You told me that Fire’s destiny is to destroy everything in its path. You told Katara that it’s a curse. That it only brings destruction and pain. And that because of that, Firebenders have to always balance humanity and savagery. And that it was tearing you apart.”

The old man does not respond.

“Do you still believe that?”

“Yes.”

“You’re wrong. It _isn’t_ a curse. It’s a gift!”

“Careful, Avatar Aang. You are beginning to sound like Zhao.”

“No. Because Zhao thought it was destruction too. That it was inhuman—and that that was the gift of it. Zhao thought destroying things was a gift, that that was what power meant. But he was wrong. Because Fire isn’t destruction or rage.”

“Then what is it?”

“It’s _life_ , Master Jeong Jeong!”

“This is a nice idea, Avatar, however—”

“No, Master, listen. It’s the drive within us. Our will. Our ambitions...it’s like the sun, inside us. Giving us purpose! And our purpose doesn’t have to be rage. It doesn’t have to be destruction. It can be rebuilding too…Actively creating peace and love...that’s Fire too!”

The man sighs, skeptical.

“Look.” The Avatar summons a flame to his hand, extends it to Jeong Jeong. “Feel this.”

The master’s hand tenses as he moves to grip half of the flame—even after sixty years and a mastery he sees Fire and he sees what it might become, what it already has done, what he has done with it...If they do not keep it contained, (if they do not keep _him_ contained), it ( _he_ ) will destroy _everything_ …

“No,” says the Avatar, placing his free hand soothingly on Jeong Jeong’s. “Feel it. It’s not growing out of control...It’s pulsing like a little heartbeat...It’s _alive_ , Master Jeong Jeong, and it’s not just destroying. It’s _life_. And energy, and infinite potential to do... _anything_. To do _good_.”

It takes him time to allow his hand to relax, but when he does, when he stops fighting the Avatar’s flame, he sees—it does not grow ad infinitum and out of control, but beats in time to his own heart. 

Perhaps the Avatar is _right_. And even considering this is a paradigm shift, and as soon as Jeong Jeong has this revelation, a profound weariness overcomes him.

“I must rest,” he says, handing the flame back to his former pupil. “Thank you.”

“Of course, Master Jeong Jeong.” The Avatar bows, before leaving Jeong Jeong to lay blinking as he tries to sleep.

* * *

He has never meditated holding Fire before. He has meditated _with_ Fire, no question, but always safely away from him on candles, always focusing on keeping it small, keeping it closely contained. But now, he sits in the cool, dark room hugging the flame close to his chest…

It beats. And again. Like the organ steadily banging in his chest.

He inhales.

_Thump._

Exhales.

_Thump._

And it does not grow wider, does not destroy…

The fire spills light around him, onto his legs, and onto the mat on which he sits. Jeong Jeong can trace the embroidered pattern with his eyes in a way he has never been able to before…

And it _warms_ his legs too, in this chilly room, and his hands, and his chest, his whole body…

And then the the weight of the revelation hits him in the chest like a boulder that Bumi might bend at his enemies, and Jeong Jeong doubles over, his forehead to the ground, sobbing…

Fire is _not_ just destruction, _not_ just pain, _not_ just death...It can also be _light_ , can also be _warmth_ …

( _He_ can also bring light and warmth and good...not just destruction and pain and death…)

He sobs; for the first time in forty years, he feels _whole._

“Master Jeong Jeong, sir?” Fire Lord Zuko enters the room, tentatively, and then stops dead in the threshold when he sees the state the old man is in. “If this isn’t a good time, I can come back.”

“That will not be necessary,” says Jeong Jeong, sitting up and turning to face the young Fire Lord. “How might I assist you?”

“Well, I came to ask you a favor. I’m to lead this country, and I don’t have any experience...The War is over, but I still have a military to command. And I need help. I could really use someone of your experience.”

“Could you not ask your uncle?”

“He wants to retire to Ba Sing Se. And I won’t take that from him. I’ll understand if you want to retire too…”

“No,” responds Jeong Jeong, wiping the tears out of his eyes. “It would be an honor to serve my country.” And for nearly the first time in forty years, he smiles.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed!
> 
> Comments are the bee's knees!


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